A protester holds up a sign against U.S. action in Syria as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Martin E. Dempsey, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Joshua Roberts/Courtesy Reuters).

Sometimes polls tell you what you already know. That’s the case with the polls that the Pew Research Center and the Washington Post and ABC News just released on Syria. Pew found that Americans oppose conducting military strikes against Syria by a margin of 48 percent to 29 percent. By a virtually identical margin (48 percent to 32 percent) they believe that President Obama has not explained clearly why the United States should attack Syria. Meanwhile, the Washington Post-ABC News poll found that Americans opposed military strikes by a margin of 59 percent to 36 percent. Read more »

President Barack Obama discusses a military response to Syria with bipartisan Congressional leaders in the Cabinet Room at the White House (Larry Downing/Courtesy Reuters).

Many people inside the Beltway doubt that President Obama will succeed in convincing Congress to authorize a military strike against Syria. Which raises a question. If the skeptics turn out to be right, would Obama be the first president to have Congress turn down his request to authorize military action? No, but he would be the first one in a very long time. Read more »

Above the Fold. I wrote two weeks ago that nothing would come of congressional efforts to reverse President Obama on Libya. Lo and behold, lawmakers have given speeches, pounded tables, and held votes. The sum total of all this activity is that Congress has let the White House have its way. True, the House did refuse last week to vote to authorize the Libya mission, a step that numerous media outlets called a “historic rejection.” It was, at least in the same way that the 1847 House vote denouncing the Mexican-American War for being “unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun” was a rebuke of President Polk. Both votes go into the history books, but neither changed anything. This week the Senate Foreign Relations Committee formally repudiated the legal arguments that the White House has used to defend its position on Libya. The committee then voted 14-5 to authorize President Obama to continue current military operations. Readers who like to see the glass half full can say that Congress at least tried to assert its war powers authority and that it failed for all understandable reasons: disagreement on the merits of the president’s policy; a fear of the consequences for U.S. credibility abroad in saying no to the White House; and plain partisan politics. The downside to Congress’s failure either to authorize the Libya mission or forbid it is that claims that the president possesses an independent war-making authority just got a little stronger. President Obama says today that the Libyan operation doesn’t rise to the level of “hostilities” or set a precedent. But you can bet that his successors will argue tomorrow that it is a powerful precedent that enables them to act as they see fit. Such is the way that constitutional authorities get redefined and reshaped.

CFR Event of the Week.GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty stopped by CFR this week to talk about his views on national security and foreign policy. His theme? “Now is not the time to retreat from freedom’s rise.” If like me you missed the event—I was in Dublin, Ireland for a conference—you can watch the video, listen to the audio, or read the transcript.

Read of the Week. If you haven’t done so already, you should read Sebastian Mallaby’s, More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite. This is not just a shameless plug for a CFR colleague and one of the most gifted conversationalists I know. More Money Than God just won the Gerald Loeb Award for best business book. This is a very big deal. The Loeb Award is the Pulitzer for financial journalism. And More Money Than God is a terrific read.

Blog Post of the Week.The boom in so-called shale gas is remaking the energy landscape. So much so, that my colleague Mike Levi is asking whether the United States should export natural gas. For those of you who don’t spend your days poring over the latest issue of American Oil & Gas Reporter, geologists have long known that shale deposits can contain vast amounts of natural gas. The problem was how to extract the gas at a price that could earn a profit. Enter “fracking,” the shorthand term for “hydraulic fracturing.” It’s a technique that injects a mix of water and chemicals deep into shale deposits, thereby fracturing them and releasing the trapped natural gas. The United States has several large shale gas deposits that are now being exploited. The question that Mike and others are grappling with is how to best make use of this resource. (And yes, fracking does come with some potentially dire side effects.)

Poll Question of the Week.Gallup finds that by a margin of four-to-one, Americans support President Obama’s troop withdrawal plan for Afghanistan—72 percent give it a thumbs up and only 23 percent a thumbs down. People who identify as Democrats are most supportive (87 percent), and Republicans the least (50 percent). On the specific question of the speed of the withdrawal, 30 percent of Americans agree with Obama’s timetable, 33 percent want to remove troops more rapidly, and 31 percent say there should be no timetable. So in all, critics who are calling for the White House to stay the course in Afghanistan don’t have the public on their side.

Chart of the Week. The emission of carbon dioxide is the main driver behind anthropogenic (i.e., human-induced) climate change. How does the United States compare to the so-called BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—when it comes to generating carbon dioxide? As the chart below shows, the United States produces more carbon dioxide by burning oil and natural gas than anyone else. China leads the way when it comes to burning coal. Indeed, coal accounts for about 70 percent of China’s total energy consumption. This is significant because for each unit of energy coal emits 80 percent more carbon dioxide than natural gas, and 20 percent more than oil. Burning coal also produces other “negative externalities,” as economists like to say, such as acid rain and air pollution. The World Health Organization reports that only 1 percent of China’s urban population breathes clean air.

New Independent Task Force Reports

India now matters to U.S. interests in virtually every dimension. This Independent Task Force report assesses the current situation in India and the U.S.-India relationship, and suggests a new model for partnership with a rising India.

Rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in low- and middle-income countries are increasing faster than in wealthier countries. The report outlines a plan for collective action on this growing epidemic.

The authors argue that the United States has responded inadequately to the rise of Chinese power and recommend placing less strategic emphasis on the goal of integrating China into the international system and more on balancing China's rise.

Campbell evaluates the implications of the Boko Haram insurgency and recommends that the United States support Nigerian efforts to address the drivers of Boko Haram, such as poverty and corruption, and to foster stronger ties with Nigerian civil society.